At the Oprah Store in Chicago, you can buy items worn by Oprah Herself on the show, from Oprah's Closet. But don't dare try them on! The rule is "To preserve the integrity of the items and ensure that Oprah was the last person to wear them," says a clerk. [True/Slant]

"It's really belittling of the customer to think that anyone from a different price bracket deserves anything less," says Stella McCartney, who has collaborated on lower-priced lines so far with H&M, Adidas, Le Sportsac, and now GapKids. [NYTimes]

Isaac Mizrahi decided to open his first store in the middle of a recession because a psychic told him to. [Fashionista]

Mizrahi also told audiences at the 92nd St. Y, "I've actually booked girls [for a fashion show] that weren't obese, they were real girls. Like gorgeous anatomy. And one was a stripper. And you could feel the energy in the room just go down. Closed the books. Pens went down. They were angry. I could feel the anger. And I never did it again, because I thought Why bother? It takes a lot to rile women. It takes like actual breasts. Someone with implants, they're fine. Yes, you're right. Fashion advertisements are hateful. Hateful. Yeah, but they wouldn't do it unless it worked, right? It works." [The Cut]

Yvon Chouinard, 70, is the founder of Patagonia. And as you would expect, he's outdoorsy. "I used to spend 250 days a year sleeping on the ground. I've climbed on every continent. I'm old enough to have seen the destruction," he says. "The reason I am in business is I want to protect what I love." And it seems like corporate responsibility has been Chouinard's practice since long before it became a buzzword; Patagonia has donated 1% of its annual sales to grass-roots environmental causes since 1985, and it switched to only using organic cotton in 1995. It has persuaded Nike, Timberland, and Wal-Mart to switch, too. [USN]

Meanwhile, Lily Cole is working with a group called the Sky Rainforest Rescue campaign, which is working to save a 3 million hectare area of rainforest in the state of Acre, Brazil. [Independent]

Levi's apparently thinks corporate responsibility comprises adding an extra message to its garment care tags, asking customers to please consider donating the jeans to charity when they are no longer needed, oh yeah, and to care for our planet. [AW]

A man named Daniel Storto makes gloves in a rust belt New York town called Gloversville. That's the best we can describe this story, which, though a tad long on the gosh-darnit quirky local color, you should totally read. [NYTimes]

Why would anyone make a $650 necklace, take the care to plate it in gold, and then adorn it with fake pearls? Questions that should be put to some outfit that sells at Barneys called Mawi. [W]

The save the garment district rally yesterday featured this grand promise from mayoral candidate Bill Thompson: "As mayor, I'll work with manufacturers, the fashion industry and labor unions to arrange for up to one million square feet of dedicated garment manufacturing space in nonprofit buildings." Meanwhile, one manufacturer wants tax cuts for companies that manufacture domestically, interest-free loans, vouchers for his rent, tariffs on imported garments, and a blow job from Anna Wintour. (All right, we made that last part up.) Enforcing existing zoning laws would probably work just as well. [Crain's]

Judith Leiber once designed a bag for Hillary Clinton based on Socks the Cat. [Style.com]

Louis Vuitton now has a store in Ulan Bator. That's in Mongolia. The country, or at least certain sectors of it, is awash in wealth from uranium and copper mining, and officials at LVMH are assured that "elegant women" are already sporting damier and monogram canvas items at Ulan Bator's "trendy nightclubs and restaurants." Louis Vuitton is not, however, the first luxury brand to hit the market: Ermenegildo Zegna opened last month. [WWD]

Roberto Cavalli, after having visited Chechnya, will now take care of fashion business in Turkey. [FWD]

Cynthia Rowley is doing a line of surfwear for Roxy. We want to see those alleged neoprene pencil skirts. [Racked]

J. Crew nearly doubled its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter, and its stock rose by 10%, to $42.01. [TS]

Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group — which owns Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Wallis, and Burton — reported a 13% rise in pre-tax profits, to £213.6 million, for the year to this August. [Independent]